Could Wi-Fi connections help hotels avoid the intermediaries that dent their profit margins? A startup called Voyat is betting on it.

Voyat co-founder Benjamin Habbel

Voyat

The company has raised $1.8 million from a group of investors including Metamorphic Ventures and Eniac Ventures to develop software meant to help hotels better understand their customers and market to them directly, cutting out companies such as Priceline and Expedia that keep 15% or more of each booking.

The key, says Voyat co-founder Benjamin Habbel, is connecting with hotel guests when they log into the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection.

With Voyat’s software, hotel guests are given an incentive–special offers or the chance at hotel upgrades, for instance–to connect to Wi-Fi using their Facebook or LinkedIn accounts, instead of just entering a password. Connected to a guest’s Facebook account after they leave, the hotel knows more about the guest in order to tailor specific marketing pitches at them.

The hope is that Voyat can become a loyalty program for hotels that don’t have one, or integrate itself with existing loyalty programs at hotels that do.

In an age when travelers can easily compare hotels online and book the lowest price room, it can be tricky for hotels to distinguish themselves from one another and to build a list of loyal customers that book directly and repeatedly. Such guests are particularly valuable because hotels don’t have to pay commissions for the referral.

Launched in late 2012, Voyat is small: its largest client is Morgans Hotel Group, which had 10 hotel properties at the end of March according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission .

Voyat will use the funding to expand its engineering team, expand from the U.S. to Europe and develop new products.

Comments (3 of 3)

Pending on one's relevance/truthfulness in letting loose their social behaviour via FB/LI/Twitter....

the inferrences can portend to taking advantage via highly relevant upsells/cross sells for the hotels, however, they've as good as their brand of "proprietary" algorithims with this....

my recent experiences have been mediocre in how "personalized" the offerings are...they generally rate a 5-7 on a scale of 1-10 in personalization that truly resonates with the offerings/amenities.

However, I am very impressed with the fluidity and overall reach of this type of model.. it will get better, more defined, over the next 2-3 years...WAY better then beacons.

1:23 pm July 30, 2014

Me wrote:

I have a fake facebook just for such occasions

5:16 pm July 29, 2014

Bennett Fitzgibbon wrote:

Connecting to wifi through FB, LInkedin, Twitter, also known as social wifi is blowing up. It allows businesses like hotels to capitalize on the free wifi they offer their guests opposed to treating wifi as an expense. It's also a great platform for creating loyalty programs. Compared to ibeacons, social wifi requires no app download/development which drastically reduces the amount of friction. It's cool to see more of these companies entering the space, it's very motivating seeing articles like this!

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